Philip José Farmer 3 hr 40 min read

Alan Green is no hero, but marooned on a backward, violent world with a hot-blooded duchess pursuing him, he'll need all his wits to reach the two stranded Earthmen and get home.

Philip José Farmer's 1957 novel is a rousing, inventive planetary-romance space opera. Vivid, witty, thoroughly entertaining. Read it for early Farmer at his most fun, a reluctant hero's picaresque odyssey across a wind-driven alien world of sailing land-ships, intrigue, and adventure.

In its time

Published in 1957, during the 1950s, post-war optimism meets cold war anxiety.

Reading it

3 hr 40 min read (a novel-length work, settle in).